The Amazing Adventures of Mandrake

I realise I haven’t been updating you on the progress of Mandrake, the seven-legged spider. This must have caused much distress, and for that I apologise. There is much to update, after all. Mandrake has had an exciting week. You may recall that I first spotted him on Friday as he sat on my bathroom door looking scared. Over the course of the day he moved closer and closer toward the door handle and observed, with much hilarity, Andrew’s double-take every damn time said wuss exited the room. On Saturday morning he was still in this position, and I was starting to wonder whether he actually needed food / water at some point. I mean, you’d think he would, really. But then, how long do spiders live?

Anyway, this all became moot when, during the course of Saturday afternoon, AN AMAZING TRANSFORMATION OCCURRED. For the next time I observed Mandrake I did not see him. I saw two spiders. Two. One much larger than Mandrake. I was immediately very sad, for it appeared that Mandrake had been guzzled by some passing fascist spider with no respect for spider lack-of-cannibalism etiquette. Then, though, I took a closer look. And I found that what had appeared to be the mangled corpse of Mandrake was in fact a cuticula. Ecdysis had taken place and Mandrake had shed his exoskeleton. On my bathroom door. How marvellous. The skin is still visibly that of a spider, too. Ecdysis, according to wikipedia, is characterised by a period of inactivity, which explains why he was slowly wandering around my door for a couple of days. It was nothing to do with his lack of appendage!

But that’s not all.

Examination of Mandrake’s new form revealed a very tiny little leg where you’d expect to find the missing limb. It appears to be slightly deformed rather than eaten, or similar. Mandrake’s obviously proud of his new body, because he’s currently doing laps of the room. I keep looking for him, thinking that he’ll have disappeared, when I spot him above the shower or underneath the window. He’s been progressing for the last few days and has nearly made it back to the door.